MULE-DIVING FOR THE HIGH JUMP

An established American entertainment

Lowville, New York LIFE IS TOUGH and getting tougher for the world's last high-diving mules. At a county fair here in rural upstate New York a few weeks ago, Smoky, Ingrid and Jet, two donkeys and a Shetland pony, were doing what they do best: entertaining country crowds by diving off a 20-foot-high board into a pool, climbing out, shaking off the water and accepting a congratulato- ry carrot. They used to travel in triumph but they now go in secret, their trailer flit- ting through the boondocks and back- woods. Ludicrous as it may seem, the high-diving mules are becoming an illicit pleasure.

Their owner, Tim Rivers, a Florida cow- boy with teeth like broken china, has been abused, pelted with rocks and threatened with death by animal rights activists. He can no longer advertise performances by his animals in advance for fear of violent protests.

He has taken his mules into courts in Alabama, Virginia and Illinois and earlier this year parked them outside the Florida State Capitol so that the state committee on animal welfare could come down and see them. Four states have already banned his act, while others are investigating whether to let the mules perform. State fairs from New Mexico to New Jersey have said they will no longer have them. Having failed to stop rodeos, which had the back- ing for a long, expensive legal fight, the animal rights campaigners are picking on more vulnerable targets like the Rivers mules.

Yet, unlike many of his attackers, Mr Rivers has spent his life working with ani- mals. As well as the 42 years he has spent travelling with his act, which he inherited from his father, he was born and raised on a ranch. All his family, including his wife and daughters, are practised ranchers and expert in trick-riding horses. He is accom- panied on his travels by his nephew, Deke Rivers, a strapping, former buffalo-riding rodeo champion with a voice as deep, smooth and polite as Elvis's. In fighting their opponents, the two men make up for the lack of funds with stetson-to-stetson resolve and country cunning. `These mules are treated like movie stars,' says Deke. 'They are fed, given a place to sleep, manicured, given new shoes, brushed and taken all over the country. All they have to do is jump in a pool three times a day. And when they get that carrot after the jump, hell, that's like a $50 bill to them. Do they look like they are suffering?' Not while they stand, well- groomed and chewing grass, under a tent- ed enclosure beside the diving-board.

It is real movie stars like Kim Basinger, the supermodels who support People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, and television personalities like the chat-show host Ricki Lake who are the most vocally opposed to the mules. 'They have never come to see us,' says Tim Rivers, 'but they just attack us and our livelihoods out of plain ignorance.' That President Clinton recently attended a fundraiser at the Basinger home in the Hamptons says all Mr Rivers needs to know about support from the White House.

Here at Lowville, a working farming town in the shadow of the Adirondacks, the Rivers' act is set up between the cotton Strange but true: Bill Clinton's Achilles' heel candy stall and the barbecue stand, oppo- site the tractor display and a safe distance from where 30 wrecked cars are racing round a track in the 'Demolition Derby'.

Three times during the day, the animals line up for their jump. Ingrid — named as a joke after Ingrid Newkirk, one of the founders of the troublesome Peta — goes first. With no physical prompting from her owners, she just knows it is time to trot up the ramp to the diving-board.

There she stands between two small American flags, drops her front hooves over the edge, and after a few looks down kicks with her hind legs and dives head first into the six-foot-deep pool. Another ramp leads up out of the pool and down again to earth. A refreshed and contented-looking mule takes the applause of a 100-strong crowd.

Horse- and mule-diving has been a fea- ture of American state and county fairs since the early 1800s. In Atlantic City hors- es dived off the pier until 1972, when the pier was torn down. Now it is being forced down the same path to extinction as the fairground freak shows. In 1947 there were 100 travelling freak shows taking bearded ladies and frog boys round the country; now there are only two.

Among the other animal acts now in trouble are Mr Rivers's other show, a Banana Derby, in which he races ponies jockeyed by monkeys, as well as the popu- lar dancing buffalos, motor-cycling baboons, and even Tiggy the water-skiing squirrel, who travels through the states with her own pair of miniature skis.

`The crowds still love 'em,' says Mr Rivers, 'but the organisers of these fairs and the big corporate sponsors don't like the trouble. These fairs used to be agricul- tural, for country people. They've changed a bunch.' Deke adds, 'All they want now is carnivals and funnel cakes.'

Tim Rivers refuses to follow the Drag Racing Stinkers, a popular show which fea- tures six skunks racing round a 50-foot track, by introducing an educational ele- ment to his act. The skunk show is preced- ed by a brief talk about how the animals need a balanced diet of meat and vegeta- bles. David Feinster, the owner of the skunks, says, 'With our educational pro- gramme, we've been very good about not upsetting anybody.'

`There's nothing educational about mule- diving,' says Mr Rivers, who will continue to fight the animal rights activists through the courts.

`I used to have a lawyer,' he says. 'Then they said if they didn't beat me in the courts, they would hit me in the pocket. I figured every time I paid the lawyer they were winning, so now I do it myself.' He remains hopeful. 'Give me time. Things will swing my way again. I'll soon have 'em whipped.'

The author is New York correspondent of the Daily Telegraph.